The Ben Mulroney Show - The danforth protest - are people paying attention anymore?

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

- Air Canada strike - Adam Trumpour  President, Launch Canada  (also, he’s a Gas Turbine and Rocket Propulsion Professional) If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Twitter: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ TikTok: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Enjoy   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Mulruni. You are listening to the Ben Mulroney show and welcome. It's Wednesday, August 13th. It is my final day at the show. I'm going to be gone as of today. I'm leaving today. I'm playing golf tomorrow for the first time in years. I am not a golfer. I'm not a golfer. My brother Nick is one of the great golfers of all

time. My dad got him into it early. I'd say it wasn't for me. But Nick really took to it like a fish to water. And he's an incredible golfer. I enjoy, I can hit the ball like once, once around. I'm going to connect once really well. And apparently they say that's the high that you chase for the rest of your life. But it doesn't, it doesn't resonate with me. But I am going to play in a charity tournament tomorrow. It's charity because they're letting me play. I feel really bad for my foursome. I feel really, really bad for my foursome because they don't know the level of mediocrity that I am going to be bringing to the course tomorrow. So I'm just going to have to turn on the charm. We're playing best ball though, however. So somebody else's ball will be best

all the time. I will report back on Monday as to what it is. But I figured if I'm taking tomorrow off, then I was going to, you know what, I haven't taken a significant amount of time off this year, this year at all. So I'm taking Friday off as well and give myself an extra long weekend. And then I'm taking the next Friday off as well to go to another charity event in Victoria, B.C. with my mother. And so we're going to have a lot of fun with that. I think we've had a lot of fun following the Blue Jays. And their rise to the top of the American League East. I think they're up by four and a half games over Boston, six and a half over New York. But it's what they do off the field every now and then that gives us a lot of enjoyment as well.

And Kevin Gossman, who's been in Toronto for four years, he's a great pitcher, has been in Toronto for four years. He posted on X. He said, so apparently there's no such thing as free parking in Toronto. And the reaction that he's been getting is, dude, you've lived here long enough to know. Like, nothing is free in Toronto. Nothing. And like, it's, it is, there is, there is such a thing as free parking in Toronto. And I'm going to explain what it is. You find a spot close to where you need to be. And then you do the calculation in your head. How long am I going to be out of my car before somebody shows up to give me a ticket? And you take the risk. Am I, if I'm just going to go into the circle K, to go buy a bottle of water I will take that risk but are you going to park on the street

and go grocery shopping? No, you're not going to do that. That would be a fool's errand. You might as well just throw some money on the ground because you know you're going to be dinged. If you're going to be in and out in five minutes, that's free parking. It's the only free parking that exists in this city.

And there you go. Yesterday, we were all girding, girding for the citywide pro-Palestinian rally that was supposed to shut down the Danforth. And depending on what news source you go to, it was either a massive success or a massive failure. The star headline, the Toronto Star, said citywide pro-Palestinian rallies draw hundreds along Bloor Danforth to demand arms embargo. So by that headline, you would think that they were quite successful. The Sun headline, pro-Palestinian protests targeting TTC Station fizzle after concern raised. Here's the reality.

At Dufferin Station, there were about 100 protesters. At Dundas West 60, at Broadview, unclear how many. Look, you put them all in one place and they're going to make more of an impact. You put them at all at one intersection, 100 people, that can shut down traffic. You spread it out over a subway line and you're going to have less of an impact. You're going to dilute those numbers. But let's listen to one of the protesters explaining why this happened. We want to raise awareness among the Canadian public, among our neighbors,

among commuters who are passing through this intersection on their way homes and let them know what their government is doing. The government has not been transparent about its actions, so that leaves it to us to do that education work with the public. We actually, in our conversations with our neighbors that we've been having for months, and especially in the last couple days, we know that the vast majority of our neighbors agree with us. We're having extremely, you know, people receive us with a lot of gratitude and appreciation

when we hand them a fly around the street and are encouraged to see people taking action and elevating this demand and really raising awareness about what's going on. Oh, thank you, white liberal woman. Thank you. Thank you for helping me, educating me, opening my eyes to the truth. Freaking exhausting. Like, you've got time in the middle of a day to go do this means you don't have a job.

I don't need to take lessons from you on anything ever. Let's break down what she said. The conversations that I'm having with, we're having with our neighbors. They're thankful. They're grateful for us educating them. The conversations I have with my neighbors are about our shared fence. They are about the game of shinny that's going to happen on our street over Christmas. If I had a neighbor who was knocking on my door talking to me about an arms embargo on the other side of the world that they want to see happen,

I would do everything in my power to make that conversation end and never have it again. And if it meant telling this delusional, unemployed, whart on the side of the city, whatever they wanted to hear, that's what I'm doing. So I can get on with my life, which includes going to work, taking the TTC, trying to cross intersections, trying to live my life. This woman is in a world of self-delusion. She created this reality where everyone is so thankful, thankful, thankful that they are stopping them on the streets, educating them on facts that aren't necessarily real. This woman believes that she is on a mission and people are grateful.

She is liberating us, liberating us from the shackles of the lies that we've been fed by the government. That's what this unemployed woman has fed herself And she goes to bed warm at night With the knowledge that the world is better Because she stopped traffic And she handed out a flyer And she's been telling people about the lies That the government has been feeding them

At least that's what I got from that quote I could be reading too much into it Okay, here's Councilor Pasternak talking about these protesters. You cannot protest on TTC property. You cannot block entry into TTC subway stops. These protests have cost the city, cost the city in police time over $20 million over the past year. And they've taken away valuable resources in crime fighting, such as assaults, robberty, shootings, stabbings, rapes.

And the wait times on 911 have increased. And this is the problem we have, a state of lawlessness where roving mobs can do it as they please. Oh, yes, but $20 million, counselor, that's a small price to pay to be educated and to have conversations and to be handed flyers. I mean, it's a small price to pay because we are being liberated from the shackles of the lies. Thank you, white liberal lady. facts matter the organizer said that one of the reasons for the protest

that lasted about two hours was that they pointed to data appearing to show that Israel has imported hundreds of thousands of bullets from Canada since 2023 175,000 were shipped this year now the report raised questions about the nature

of the Canadian arms exports to Israel despite the liberal government's assurances that Canada has only exported non-lethal equipment our government said the bullet it's in question, quote, are in fact paintball style projectiles. Paintball. Hey, facts matter.

Yeah, yeah. But no, but that's a lie. That's a lie. How do I know? I've got a flyer for you. But again, I've said this before, and I'll say it again, real quick. It doesn't matter until Canada has completely cut off ties with Israel, completely, diplomatically, economically, financially, culturally, all of it.

Until that happens, these people will not be happy. Until Israel ceases to exist, nothing the government does will be enough for them. I want to make a t-shirt. Everything will never be enough. Once you give them a little, they're going to want more. And we're witnessing it in real time. All right, so let's open up the phone lines. Did you notice the protesters?

Did they make life miserable for you? But more to the point, do you even pay attention anymore? That's coming up next on the Ben Mulrity show. The plan to occupy Danforth demonstrations yesterday, depending on who you listened to, either caused a lot of consternation for people or fizzled and petered out. We want to hear from you. Did they affect you in any way? Did you have trouble getting into the subway stops that you needed to get into?

But because by the way, doing that, impeding your access, that's a crime. I doubt, by the way, I'm not seeing in any of the reports of arrests that were made. I suspect it went as I expected, which was to say, yet again, do a crime. There is no time. Frank, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Good morning, Ben. Good morning. I agree with what you just said.

it's clear that obstructing to P.C. can be kind of prosecuted as, I believe, criminal mischief, and I think it's September 430 of the criminal court. And so this whole argument, this position that these protesters put forth, that this some way breaches the rights under the Canadian Charter is bogus. And I like the fact that someone would even come forward and say such damning statements. And, you know, the police can use that as a basis to start prosecuting. and finding these people. Well, look, I would go one step further. And again, I would, I would just like somebody to test this stuff in court.

If you, if there is a flyer that says, hey, come join us. And here's, here's the plan. The plan is to commit a crime, right? We want it, we want it. That's essentially what the flyer said. Anybody who shows up, if you're showing up to that, then you are part of a criminal organization. every single person who shows up doesn't matter what they believe fact is you showed up to something and you knew a crime was going to be committed you're participating in that crime it's a and so

I would like to see all of them every single one of them rounded up just once and let's let the courts figure it out absolutely man I agree with you one that the city can do and if not the province they can seek a court injunction to stop this from happening in advance and and then use that that they continue to engage in these activities, these protesters, they can be fined or be held in contest. Oh, yes, but Frank, that is never going to happen in this city.

You've got far too many people who quietly, just by what they don't say and the actions they don't take, very much in favor of these protests, very much against Israel. They have no problem with that. You know, they've, on their watch, 4% of the people in this city,

the Jews experienced, 40% of the hate the hate crimes. That is a blight on the reputation of this city at least in my mind in their mind you're getting what you deserve

because you're a dirty Jew that's what I think and someone is going to have to prove me wrong Frank thank you very much yeah look you got Vince Gasparo who is the MP Liberal MP for Eglinton

and he Eglinton Lawrence and he wrote an open letter to Olivia Chow saying the anti-Semitism that's going on is too much and I'm ready to facilitate any federal support the city may need to protect our infrastructure while combating crime and anti-Semitism. No Canadian community should ever be held responsible for a foreign conflict or the decisions of a foreign government. International conflicts must not create divisions that play out in our streets. The current situation is untenable.

More must be done. Not only do I co-sign all of that, I said all of that two years ago. And so I'm very much in that camp and I support and I commend Vince Gasparo for saying that and for saying it and directing it to our mayor. But a couple of things. One, he should also be directing that some people in his own caucus. There are plenty of voices in the liberal government that are not helping this situation. And I would also say, Vince, I know this is, you know, you just got elected, but. I don't know where Olivia Chow filed your letter, but she certainly didn't put it at the top of her to-do list. Hey, Brian, thank you so much for calling.

Hi, from Brian. Yeah. So, quick question. What do you think would be a better alternative than protests to get awareness of what's going on on the other side of the world? How about you protest at the places of government? How about you protest at City Hall? How about your protest at Queens Park? How about your protest at Parliament Hill?

Explain to me why the protests are taking place. at Young and Bloor. Explain to me why I, as a taxpayer, who pay for access to that infrastructure, don't have access to that infrastructure. Explain to me why that is my burden to carry. And explain to me why people with no jobs have any business educating me,

an educated person about something that's happening around the world. Explain to me why this city needs to be ground zero for issues that are affecting another part of the world. Explain to me why it is the burden of a Jewish, Torontonian to carry the perceived ills of a government from the other side of the world. Explain those things to me and explain to me why after two years, no one has been arrested for clearly breaking laws on the streets of Toronto. Those are the questions I have before I will ever say that this is a situation that I'm down with.

Do you think a genocide is happening right now? You don't. No, I do not. So that shows a one-sided bias answer to all of this. No, no. Absolutely it does. Do you think there's starvation happening right now? I think Hamas is depriving people of the access to the food.

You don't think Israel is depriving people of access to the food? Nope. Okay. So right there. So you think, hold on, because you and I, you and I in the city of Toronto are having a difference of opinion over something that's happening there, you have the right to occupy my city? Why are we in the G7 then? Because we're not just a state of Canada just to be focused on Canada. We have international people here.

We're on the international stage for a reason. So let me ask you a question. Toronto is the most multicultural city in the world with more people from different countries living here than anywhere else. So you think it's okay that because somebody has a problem with what's happening in the Middle East, what if somebody had a problem with China or Sri Lanka or South America or Central America or Russia or Ukraine or somewhere in Africa, 150 different countries with 150 different grievances, explain to me how the city of Toronto, which exists in southern Ontario,

Ontario is supposed to exist and actually function, basically function as a city if every single person is able to import their grievance from their home country to the streets of this city and cease it from functioning. If your issues are so important that you get to Trump, my life is a Torontonian, and that repeats itself 150 times, explain to me how we function as a city. Do you not believe in the right to protest? No, no, you didn't answer my question. You didn't answer my question. Why does your right to protest for two years straight over one issue knowing that everybody else has grievances from their home, 150 of them, explain to me how we function as a city? Everyone has the right to protest their issues, even people from other countries.

Okay, so where does your right to protest end and my right to live as a tax-paying law-abiding citizen begin? Am I supposed to be subjected to this Because you're angry It does your anger determine how right you are You're making it seem like it's misplaced anger It might not be misplaced But it's been going on long enough Because the issue has been going on for this fault

No, no, no I reject that I'm sorry and I'd like to have a conversation about it But the simple fact that I don't agree with you Means that you get to turn it up to 11 And take over my city And I reject that if we can't have a conversation

if any time you don't get what you want you're going to take over my city that's not protest that's occupation and by the way you guys are the ones protesting occupation so there we go thank you very much have a great day call back anytime though

I really did appreciate this conversation uh hey uh who do we are we we got some time yes naeem welcome to the show hey good morning bed and how are you I'm well good so I think anytime we have these situations where there's protests, more often than not, there's civil

disobedience. And I think depending on which side of the discussion you're on, you will either be annoyed or you either will be in favor. You're using a euphemism of civil disobedience. There's outright breaking of the law. It's criminal behavior. Which is what civil disobedience is, right? No, but that's a really polite way of, it's adding nobility to the crime. But that's the reality. No, no, it's a, I like to call things what they are. If your intent is to break the law, and you break the law, you are a criminal.

I don't, I will not. Let me finish. Sure, go ahead. Go ahead. Civil disobedience, if you look at the definition, can only be civil disobedience if you break the law. That is the intent. Sure. And ever anybody has engaged in civil disobedience, it's intentionally, willfully breaking the law, right?

The only bone that I want to pick with you is when we fashioned this as, okay, the way you said it, you put out a flyer, you want to participate in a criminal act, you're part of a criminal organization, I think that's overstating it, right? The reality is, is in order for civil disobedience, and you have to intend to break the law, I'm with you there.

That's the intention. But what's the intention here? It's not for criminal gain. It's not for some sort of syndications. it, it's not organized crime, it's not mobsterism, that's not what it is. It's a point, whether we disagree with it, or you disagree with it,

it's always, you know, when... But, but, name, we only have... I got to run, I got to run, but, and listen, I take all your points, and again, I really do appreciate you calling in. I don't care about the intent anymore. I don't. And I want all of them arrested, and I want them to have

to prove that they didn't do anything wrong in court. I want them to have to hire a lawyer. I I want them to have to take time out of their lives, and rather than be on the streets of Toronto, I want them to be in a court of law defending themselves. And if it turns out that the court decides that they were innocent, good. They're out of pocket a couple of thousand dollars and they have been off the streets. And then we know where the line is.

But until then, I want them rounded up and I want the courts, I want the police to do what they're supposed to do. I want the courts to do what they're supposed to do. And call me crazy, I want intersections in this city to do what they're supposed to do, which means people can walk across them. bikes can go across them and people can and and cars can go across that's what i want i want everybody to stick to their goddamn lane all right on that we're going to take a break um air canada flight attendants could walk off the job on saturday grounding hundreds of flights and surrounding thousands

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Again, the phone lines are open for 16870-6400 or 1-8-225 talk. We're talking about, we're going to pivot away from protests into possible work stoppage as it relates to Air Canada, the nation's largest airline. As we know that there is a big discrepancy between what the airline wants to offer to the flight attendants and what the 10,000 flight attendants say is absolutely. absolutely unacceptable. And because of that, the airline is making contingency plans, offering refunds, rebooking on partner carriers on rail, alerting customers via email or app. They're going to start canceling flights on Thursday. So already, we know that there will be some flights cancel. We know that they're doing their best to limit those things. Air Canada Express, so I guess the flights between Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, those are not going to be canceled. I think

that's a separate thing. So just go in with your eyes open. I'm supposed to take an Air Canada flight, like I said, to the West Coast next Thursday. It's up in the air. We don't know what's going to happen. So I want to hear from you at 416870-6400 or 1-3-225 talk. Are you planning to travel during this window where things are up in the air? What are you prepared to do?

Are you going to rebook? Are you going to wait and see? Are you going to take a train? Are you going to drive? Um, earlier in the show, Greg Brady, I was hearing him talk about, like, there's certain flights that he won't take. And he was talking to Dave Bradley in the newsroom. And he said, like, would you, would you take a flight to Pittsburgh? I mean, I would never take a flight to Pittsburgh. I would never go to Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is actually a lovely city Is it a lovely Is it lovely enough that I would book a flight

A $500, $600 flight to go to Pittsburgh? No, you would probably You can drive. I've seen images of it It looks like a lovely little place, lovely little burg Right? I haven't been there a number of years

And a lot of cities have changed But Toronto's changed Toronto 20 years ago you would not say The same things about Toronto's you do today I mean I said there's a great There's a great J Barron Shell movie called She's Out of Your League. And it's about a bunch of dudes who work at the TSA.

That's a story of my life. And a bunch of dudes who work at the TSA and all of a sudden the most gorgeous blonde woman comes through the TSA at Pittsburgh. And the, you know, Jay Barrichelle, who looks like Jay Barrichelle does. And this smoke show of a blonde, they start dating. And all of his friends keep saying,

she's out of your league. But the backdrop of the movie was Pittsburgh. I don't know how we got on to Pittsburgh. But no, I want to get back. I want to get back to the airlines. So I want to hear from you, what are you doing to mitigate what could be a disaster for your travel plans? 416-870-6400 or 1-3-8-225 talk. Look, one thing I want to talk about, I didn't remember this, that back in the day, the Air Canada Flight Attendant signed a 10-year deal.

That's a long contract. And it reminds me of like contracts in sports, that sometimes what happens, let's say, you're you are a mid-range athlete in your sport and you sign a 10-year deal and then two years into your contract something happens and you start playing to on a higher level you could be commanding a couple more million dollars a year but you signed a 10-year deal so what do you do do you demand to renegotiate or like what do you do or what happens if you win the si young award and you sign a 10-year deal for $100 million. And then after that, you never win more than six games.

Does the, what does the team do? They pay you out because they sign that contract. Now, here's what seems to have happened in my mind. Air Canada flight attendants got the, and Air Canada itself got peace in the valley for 10 years. And we were all beneficiaries of it. And then what happened is we went. through a period where we actually had like below zero inflation and then went all the way up to like 8% and stayed there.

I stayed very high for a very long time. And what that happened is that ate away at the gains of the flight attendants. So the point that now they're behind the eight ball. That's not the fault of Air Canada. That's the benefit that you get from a long-term deal. And so in my estimation, one of the reasons. these sides seem so far apart is because so much has changed in the world between when they signed the contract and where we are today.

I don't know that you can put that at the fault of Air Canada. You got the benefit of 10 years of career, of peace in the valley. So I don't know how you guys feel about that, but maybe that can be part of the conversation. Mark, welcome to the show. Mark, you there? Hey, how are you doing, Ben? I'm well, thanks.

Glad to talk to you, and my condolences on your father. Oh, thank you very much. So we went to Europe last year during the Air Canada pilot strike and had the sweat and struggle, but during that process, I found out about the possible flight attendant strike this year. We're going back to Europe again in August, and we booked our flights three months ago, but refused to book Air Canada because we feared there would be a strike.

Right. We looked at Alitalia. Okay. So we don't have to worry about the strike. That's smart. we're going into the 6th and I like. Yeah. Now, what do you think of sort of the situation that we're in

where it does seem like they are worlds apart? And one of the reasons they're worlds apart is because the last time they signed a deal was 10 years ago and the world was very different back then. I'm surprised that, well, not surprised, but based on what happened with the pilots, if you thought that there wasn't going to be a strike this year

and the fact that you have these hardworking individuals that don't get paid and so the plane leaves the docking station, they talk about flights delayed and these attendants you're not getting paid for three or four hours into the flight and bark and starts going that's crazy to me

going to work and not getting paid. Yeah. So I don't know that Air Canada has much to stand on in this day and age. Maybe 10 years ago they did but I think it's a losing battle for them and I know for me

I've lost a lot of confidence in Air Canada and I travel a lot and like I said it's first time first time traveling Eritalia, we'll see what it's like. Yeah, well hey, Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Look, Eric Canada offered 25% total compensation increase in year one, 38% over four years. The union says that that offer equals 17.2% over four years. Again, I'm not, I'm not, I don't want to get involved in the squabbles in a private company, but I would kill, kill to have a contract. that grows 17.2% over four years. I can't remember the last time I saw numbers like that, ever.

So I'm not quite sure why that dissatisfies them. I'm the wrong guy to ask. Let's go to John. John, welcome to the show. Hey, Ben, how are you? I love your show. Thank you very much. Yeah, what I've done is once I hear about a strike,

I just started booking American carriers. Yeah. So next week I go to Columbus, Ohio. I'm flying out of Pearson with American Airlines there and back. The week after, I go to St. Louis, and I'm flying to Buffalo and flying American out of Buffalo there and back. It's a 50-minute drive. And until the dust settles, I'll figure out if I'm coming back or not,

but I probably will let yourself, I'm hooked to the points. Yeah, I've got the point. You're right. Yeah, it's a loyal. I came to an epiphany about 10 years ago. I realized that the reason we were put on this earth, like the reason humans are here, adorned with all the rights and awareness that we have

is so that we can collect airline points. Call me crazy. Anyway, thank you very much for the call, my friend. I appreciate it. Yeah, so it seems that people are, I guess we're used to work stoppages now, and we're not, we don't want to get caught flat-footed. Do we, yeah, really quick, let's take this quick call from Jason.

Jason, how are you going to be dealing with this potential strike? Well, I'm not flying with their Canada. I guess. That's pretty evident. You know, give them what they want. Take away what they already have in terms of perks. I have a friend. Yeah.

She flies everywhere with the family. So you can have this. You want to do. You can have the perks. So you're talking about like the ability to take, you know, the benefits of staying in nice hotels and taking extra time off and free flights and all that stuff. You think that should all be gone? they're given

part of the deal is to be given a number of flights or can fly anywhere in the world correct? Yeah. So that's got to go

or reduce it in, you know, so that's how you play tennis in terms of the negotiation. Yeah. Give it a little

take of it. Interesting. Yeah. It's a deal way back and now they're saying, well, like you said, they want more. All right, Jason.

Well, thank you very much. We'll have to see, listen, we'll all be playing very close attention to this, but thank you very much. Hey, From high school gyms to the edge of space,

young innovators will be battling it out in a rocketry competition where precision and power means everything. Plus, they get to play with rockets. So that's cool. And that's next. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. The nerds shall inherit the earth. And I say that with so much respect in my heart and in my mind for nerds writ large.

Every one of us has a little bit of nerd in us. and there is nothing, nothing that I love more than seeing somebody pursue their passion. And that's what nerding is. That's what being a nerd is. It doesn't matter what it is. And you can be a nerd for anything. And right now there is, I'm so glad that we're talking, with the president of Launch Canada, Adam Trompore. He's the president of the nerds, right?

over 1,500 students from 26 universities, 30 teams competing in 35 projects, over 70 independent amateur projects. We're talking a lot of rockets that are going to be shot into the air over the course of this, I guess it's an event. It's an event. So please welcome the show Adam Trump, or the president of Launch Canada. Adam, welcome to the show. Hey, thank you so much, Ben. Thanks for having this self-professional. nerd on. Yes. So tell me where, so where is this taking place? So this takes place,

um, partly in, uh, Timmons in northern Ontario. Uh, we start with kind of a conference STEM festival there. So we'll have all of our students showing off their, their rockets, showing off their projects. We'll have speakers from industry. And then we go about an hour and a half, uh, southwest of Timmons to an area on, uh, provincial crown lands on the traditional territory of the Metogamy First Nation, who have been our awesome, awesome partners for this. And we carve Cape Canaveral out of the forest and launch rockets all week. Okay, listen, before we get into, like, the fun of all of this and what this means for the kids and what this means for Canada, I would love to get, you know, get your take on the snapshot of

the fact this is happening on the backdrop of wildfires that are raging everywhere. And Ontario has been, I mean, we just got a little rain yesterday, but we went, I think, almost 12 days with no precipitation. So have you had to be, like, talk to me about the responsibility of shooting rockets in the air that could spark a fire? Oh, absolutely, yeah. So we, obviously, when you're doing anything involving rocket, safety is paramount because, you know, fire and explosions are possible.

So we work really closely with local fire crews. We're always, you know, monitoring the fire risk in the immediate area. Luckily, in the area we're launching in, we seem to be in pretty good shape. We've had, you know, like you say, some rain moving in, which has been quite timely. And we've got fire crews stationed on site for the entire week as well, all kinds of emergency. So, yeah, so it's a high, it's high risk, but you are matching the risk with responsibility. Absolutely. Okay.

All right, well, good. So let's put that aside. I'm just glad we talked about that because people would be listening to this saying, well, what the heck's going on here? So I'm glad. Yeah, okay, so I'm glad that you've taken care of that. Let's now talk about Launch Canada. How long has it been around and what's the goal?

Yeah, so we started Launch Canada with our first event back in 2022. And this really came about because we've been seeing this huge surge of interest in rockets by young Canadians. Historically, you know, we've had these space technology niches in Canada that we're kind of known for. Everybody knows the Canada arms, stuff like that. But we've sometimes had like this small country mindset and outside of these niche areas, there usually has not been so much support. And the whole question of how we get stuff to space is one of those things that we haven't really focused on. But for all these young people, they've been watching, you know, these big international companies like SpaceX doing really impressive things. And it's making them want to know about the technology that does it.

So they've been creating their own rocket teams to learn this technology in a practical way. The launch can't exist to give them the opportunity to do that, learn how to do it safely, and bring them all together so they can actually launch really big, impressive rockets. How big are we talking about? Like when at this competition, how big do we get and how high do the rockets go? So physically, you know, some of these rockets are going to be 10, 15, even 20 feet tall. They are going to be breaking the sound barrier. Some of them are going to be, you know, going faster than Mach 2. Wow.

We've got rockets that are going to reach potentially about 80,000 feet altitude. So this is like twice the height of what a jetliner cruising across the Atlantic flies at. So these are not little toy rockets. Yeah, so, and that's, like, those are, those are significant achievements, but in order to get from, from what you're talking about to, uh, the rockets that can have a heavy payload and make it, uh, to, to where, you know, that's a, that's a, that's a, there's a big difference there, isn't it? Or are we dealing with the same? Oh, absolutely. So, so, so, um, but these young people, they have designs on, on building the next SpaceX, don't they? Absolutely. We've got, you know, teams that have been building on the experience they've gained. You know, they're getting deeper insights.

You know, what are the real core engineering challenges when you're trying to build something complex like a rocket? Yeah. And some of these students have actually been going and creating their own startup companies based on that experience. That's awesome. Actually, yeah, it's become this whole new proving ground for how you can jumpstart an entire new industry at a time when I would argue we really, really need it. You know, this is a high-skill, high-tech manufacturing sector, and it's future-proof. Oh, yeah, it's a trillion-dollar industry.

Totally, yeah. And these students are really showing the way to do it. And I think even more fundamentally, you know, if you want to do something big, you've got to start by believing on some level that it's actually possible. Yeah. And a big part of what these students come away with is the knowledge that they can actually take on really, really hard, complex problems. and be successful at it

if they work hard and go about it the right way and that's a really empowering lesson to learn and whatever they end up doing after they graduate they will be so much better off and so much farther along

because they've had these experiences yeah and look they found their tribe right to be amongst like-minded people who are cheering them on challenging them pushing them that's how you build it's how you build a better rocket

but it's also how you build a better rocket scientist. Oh, yeah, and it's, you know, you get this really cool feedback going on where every year, you know, you'll have that one team that really raises the bar and maybe does something that other people never imagined they could. But then everybody else sees that and suddenly something that... The bar has been raised.

Yeah. Yeah. Hey, Adam, we're going to have to leave it there, but I want to remind everybody, then go to launch Canada.org. But last question, very quickly, if people want to watch these things going up into the sky, is there a YouTube channel or something like that? absolutely we're going to be live streaming the whole event so

you can go to our website launch canna.org and we'll be posting the details for how to do that Adam Trompore thank you so much congratulations you're doing great work thank you so much Ben take care StackTV is now 50% off.

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